The present invention relates to audio systems. More particularly, the invention relates to audio devices (e.g., sound cards) that allow multiple audio transducers to be efficiently configured in a computer system.
The early computer systems were technological marvels of their time, but practical applications for them were quite limited. As computer systems continue to evolve, the raw processing power and functionality they provide continue to increase.
As technology advances, computer systems are being integrated into telephone systems. This is especially true for next generation telephone systems that include packet switched transport in addition to the traditional circuit switched transport.
Incorporating personal computer clients in the next generation telephone systems will increase the number of audio transducers that can be used and further complicates the switching requirements. For example, it may be desirable to have a computer system provide communication through multiple microphones, multiple speakers, and multiple telephones.
Conventional systems will likely not efficiently provide this functionality. Conventional sound cards typically only have a few ports for connecting audio transducers such as microphones, speakers, headsets, and the like. The user may utilize an almost infinite number of audio transducers by manually disconnecting and connecting the different audio transducers. However, the requirement of manually connecting an audio transducer when it is desired is very tedious and too error prone to be practical. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the ports to a sound card are typically at the back of the computer system and difficult to access.
Another solution can be to utilize a mechanical switch box to which the user connects multiple audio transducers to the sound card of the computer. Although the mechanical switch boxes may be placed in a more convenient location, it may be necessary to have multiple switch boxes (e.g., one switch box for input audio transducers and one for output audio transducers), which further complicates the task of switching audio configurations. Furthermore, this solution still requires a user to manually switch to the desired audio transducers.
Multiple sound cards can also be inserted into a computer system so that it would be possible to simultaneously connect multiple audio transducers. Application software could allow a user to switch between the different sound cards. There are a number of disadvantages with this solution including the utilization of scarce computer resources like slots, hardware interrupt requests (IRQs) and port addresses. Also, the number of sound cards that are designed to operate in a computer system with other sound cards is limited so the selection of sound cards that can be utilized may be reduced. Furthermore, as more audio transducers are added, there is a substantial incremental cost as new sound cards must be added.
Accordingly, what is needed are innovative techniques for efficiently configuring and using multiple audio transducers in computer systems. Additionally, it would be beneficial to provide automatic configuration for telephony devices that have off hook capabilities.